Programs & Events

Last month, we hosted a sold-out crowd for our first Professional Fireside Chat — a 90-minute conversation packed with value, helping people across industries level up their understanding of and approach to AI. The room filled fast, the questions didn't stop, and the feedback was clear: do this again.

So we're back! This time the topic is Escaping Entry-Level Jobs: an honest conversation about what it actually takes to move from doing the work to leading it. We'll cover how to get real value out of the role you're in right now, how to spot growth opportunities before they're announced, how to reframe your past experience so your next employer sees what you're actually capable of, and how to apply your skills in non-traditional settings like consulting, startups, and ventures of your own. This session is built for professionals with under five to seven years of experience;. and while our speakers come from tech, it's designed for anyone in engineering, product, healthcare, automotive, retail and e-commerce, supply chain, finance, or operations.

Meet the Panelists:

Dr. Ali Hamou is a technology leader, entrepreneur, and researcher with over twenty years of experience building cloud platforms across healthcare, smart cities, and industrial IoT. At Amazon, he leads engineering teams building world-class distributed systems and spearheads SP-AI, an initiative enabling leading AI coding agents to work with Amazon's Selling Partner API surface out of the box. He co-founded Pulse Infoframe, a multi-million-dollar health analytics company, holds patented smart-city communications technologies, and served as a researcher and adjunct professor at the University of Western Ontario. He holds a PhD in Computer Science from Western and an MBA from Warwick Business School.

Abu Zayd is a technology leader, AI entrepreneur, and former CIO/CTO who has spent his career leading digital transformations, enterprise engineering, and e-commerce innovation. He served as Head of Product and Engineering (Connected Consumer) at Ford & Lincoln Motor Company, CIO at Trademark Global, Senior Director of e-commerce technology at Office Depot, and Director at Sears Holdings. Today he is the CEO and Founder of Gentling.Ai and advises multiple AI ventures. He is also a founding board member of UMMA.

Space is limited; last one sold out!